The National Passtime

The Canucks

They just couldn’t help themselves. Something deep inside the Canadian psyche forced them to build it—they never had a choice. They’re nominally in charge of KAF and therefore have a lot of personnel here, and a vested interest in keeping them sane, and this was the best way to do it: they built a hockey rink in the desert.

In the corner of the boardwalk closest to Tim Horton’s (another hometown favorite in Canadia), they erected an outdoor hockey rink on a concrete slab and every day they spend hours running up and down, chasing an orange ball.

Kudos to them, I suppose. I mean, the Americans have been here for 8 years and I see no signs of a baseball diamond. Though, there are numerous basketball courts and a beach volleyball pit. All that’s left to complete a reenaction of the memorable scene from Top Gun is Kenny Loggins.

I’ve never actually watched a hockey game in my life, in spite of multiple offers from my friends in Rochester. I did watch Slap Shot with Paul Newman a few years ago, supposedly the definitive hockey movie, but I was not impressed. I kept waiting for the contrived depth of Field of Dreams, the hilarity of Bull Durham, or the drama of Remember the Titans—I was left wanting. All I saw were pretty broad attempts at humor and a lot of blood.

Perhaps I’m missing that essential ingredient which makes hockey interesting to me, some kind of ice chromosome. There’s no great tradition of winter sports in Alabama, unless deer hunting counts. I can’t ice skate backwards. I consider the Winter Olympics to be the Boring Olympics. I say that like marathon running is exciting in the summer Olympics, but at least they have the 100 yard dash. It’s thrilling to know how much can change in thousandths of a second; heroes made, dreams crushed, records broken. That’s drama!

Speaking of incomprehensible sports, I stumbled on a cricket match on the Boardwalk yesterday. I think we’ve all seen it on TV at some point, and I believe in the past that someone tried to explain the rules to me, but it’s just bewildering. Luckily there was an English bystander who informed me of the following:

There are 11 players on each side. The offense consists of two batsmen on opposite sides of the pitch, and the defense has a bowler who is hurling the ball at one of the batsmen. Should this batsmen get a hit that goes beyond the far marker, that’s four runs. If the catcher fails to catch the ball, that’s a run, and if the batsman hits a ball inside the field, he has to run between the wickets, and each time he does, he scores a run. Meanwhile the opposite batsman is also running, and they switch places occasionally.

An average games lasts 20 overs, but I’m not sure what makes a batsman out… Or ends an over…

My head is still spinning.

So why am I sitting here watching the Canadians pine for ice, and the English batsmen run between length of the pitch between the wickets? I suppose because there’s nothing else to do. I’m trapped on an airbase in Afghanistan with no TV and limited access to the Internet? It’s made even sports entertaining.